Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 3:13; 5:23-24
Ⅰ
In order to live a holy life for the church life, we need the Lord to establish our heart blameless in holiness (with no fault found in our holiness)—1 Thes. 3:13:
A
The heart is the conglomerate of man’s inward parts, man’s chief representative, his acting agent:
１
Our heart is a composition of all the parts of our soul—the mind, the emotion, and the will (Matt. 9:4; Heb. 4:12; John 14:1; 16:22; Acts 11:23)—plus one part of our spirit—the conscience (Heb. 10:22; 1 John 3:20).
２
Our heart and its condition before God are organically, intrinsically, and inseparably related to the condition of our spirit, soul, and body before God:
ａ
The exercise of the spirit works only when our heart is active; if man’s heart is indifferent, the spirit is imprisoned within and is unable to show forth its capability—Matt. 5:3, 8; Psa. 78:8; Eph. 3:16-17.
ｂ
The soul is the person himself, but the heart is the person in action; the heart is the acting agent, the acting commissioner, of our entire being.
ｃ
The activities and movements of our physical body depend on our physical heart; in like manner, our daily living, the way we act and behave, depends on what kind of psychological heart we have.
B
The heart is the entrance and exit of life, the “switch” of life; if the heart is not right, life in the spirit is hindered, and the law of life cannot work freely and without obstruction to reach every part of our being; though life has great power, this great power is controlled by our small heart—Prov. 4:23; Matt. 12:33-37; cf. Ezek. 36:26-27.
C
God is the unchanging One, but according to our natural birth our heart is changeable, both in our relationship with others and with the Lord—cf. 2 Tim. 4:10; Matt. 13:3-9, 18-23.
D
There is no one who, according to his natural, human life, is steadfast in his heart; because our heart changes so easily, it is not at all trustworthy—Jer. 17:9-10; 13:23.
E
Our heart is blamable because it is changeable; an unchanging heart is a blameless heart—Psa. 57:7; 108:1; 112:7.
F
In God’s salvation the renewing of the heart is once for all; however, in our experience our heart is renewed continually because it is changeable—Ezek. 36:26; 2 Cor. 4:16.
G
Because our heart is changeable, it needs to be renewed continually by the sanctifying Spirit so that our heart can be established, built up, in the state of being holy, the state of being separated unto God, occupied by God, possessed by God, and saturated with God—Titus 3:5; Rom. 6:19, 22.
H
In order to be “those who are being sanctified” in living a holy life for the church life, we must cooperate with the inner operating of the One “who sanctifies” by dealing with our heart—Heb. 2:11; Psa. 139:23-24:
１
God wants our heart to be soft—Ezek. 36:26; Matt. 13:4, 19; 2 Cor. 5:14; cf. Exo. 32:9; Jer. 48:11.
２
God wants our heart to be pure—Matt. 5:8; Psa. 73:1, 25; Jer. 32:39; Psa. 86:11b; 2 Tim. 2:22; 1 Tim. 1:5.
３
God wants our heart to be loving—Psa. 42:1-2; S. S. 1:1-4; 2 Cor. 3:16; 2 Thes. 3:5; Hymns, #546, #547; Eph. 6:24; John 15:9-10; 21:15-17; Matt. 26:6-13; 1 John 2:5.
４
God wants our heart to be at peace—Acts 24:16; 1 John 3:19-21; Heb. 10:22; 1 John 1:7, 9; 1 Tim. 1:5; Phil. 4:6-7; Col. 3:13-15.
I
As our heart is being established blameless in holiness by the continual renewing of the sanctifying Spirit, we are becoming the New Jerusalem with the newness of the divine life and the holy city with the holiness of the divine nature—Rev. 21:2; 1 John 5:11-12; 2 Pet. 1:4.
Ⅱ
God not only has made us holy in position by the redeeming blood of Christ to separate us unto Himself in His judicial redemption but also is sanctifying us in disposition by His own holy nature to saturate us with Himself in His organic salvation—Heb. 13:12; 10:29; Rom. 6:19, 22; Eph. 5:26; 1 Thes. 5:23-24:
A
God’s dispositional sanctification of our spirit, soul, and body is to “sonize” us divinely, making us sons of God that we may become the same as God in His life and in His nature but not in His Godhead so that we can be God’s expression—Eph. 1:4-5; Heb. 2:10-11.
B
By sanctifying us, God transforms us in the essence of our spirit, soul, and body, making us wholly like Him in nature; in this way He preserves our spirit, soul, and body wholly complete—1 Thes. 5:23:
１
Quantitatively, God sanctifies us wholly; qualitatively, God preserves us complete—that is, He keeps our spirit, soul, and body perfect.
２
Although God preserves us, we need to take the responsibility, the initiative, to cooperate with His operation to be preserved by keeping our spirit, soul, and body in the saturating of the Holy Spirit—vv. 12-24.
C
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our spirit in sanctification, we must keep our spirit in a living condition by exercising our spirit:
１
In order to preserve our spirit, we must keep our spirit living by exercising it to have fellowship with God; if we fail to exercise our spirit in this way, we will leave it in a deadened situation:
ａ
To rejoice, pray, and give thanks are to exercise our spirit; to preserve our spirit is first of all to exercise our spirit to keep our spirit living and to pull it out of death—vv. 16-18.
ｂ
We need to cooperate with the sanctifying God to be separated from a spirit-deadening situation—cf. Num. 6:6-8; 2 Cor. 5:4.
ｃ
We must worship God, serve God, and fellowship with God in and with our spirit; whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we do must be in our spirit—John 4:24; Rom. 1:9; Phil. 2:1.
２
In order to preserve our spirit, we need to keep it from all defilement and contamination—2 Cor. 7:1.
３
In order to preserve our spirit, we must exercise ourselves to have a conscience without offense toward God and men—Acts 24:16; Rom. 9:1; cf. 8:16.
４
In order to preserve our spirit, we must take heed to our spirit, setting our mind on the spirit and caring for the rest in our spirit—Mal. 2:15-16; Rom. 8:6; 2 Cor. 2:13.
D
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our soul in sanctification, we must clear the three main “arteries” of our psychological heart, the parts of our soul—our mind, emotion, and will—Phil. 2:2, 5; 1:8; 2:13:
１
In order for our soul to be sanctified, our mind must be renewed to be the mind of Christ (Rom. 12:2), our emotion must be touched and saturated with the love of Christ (Eph. 3:17, 19), our will must be subdued by and infused with the resurrected Christ (Phil. 2:13; cf S. S. 4:4a; 7:4a), and we must love the Lord with our whole being (Mark 12:30).
２
The way to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart is to make a thorough confession to the Lord; we need to stay with the Lord for a period of time, asking Him to bring us fully into the light, and in the light of what He exposes, we need to confess our defects, failures, defeats, mistakes, wrongdoings, and sins—1 John 1:5-9:
ａ
In order to unclog the artery of our mind, we need to confess everything that is sinful in our thoughts and in our way of thinking.
ｂ
In order to unclog the artery of our emotion, we need to confess the natural and even fleshy way that we have expressed our joy and sorrow and also that, in many cases, we hate what we should love, and we love what we should hate.
ｃ
In order to unclog the artery of our will, we need to confess the germs of rebellion in our will.
ｄ
If we take the time necessary to unclog the three main arteries of our psychological heart, we will have the sense that our entire being has become living and is in a very healthy condition.
E
In order to cooperate with God to preserve our body in sanctification, we must present our body to Him so that we may live a holy life for the church life, practicing the Body life in order to carry out God’s perfect will—Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Thes. 4:4; 5:18:
１
Our fallen body, the flesh, is the “meeting hall” of Satan, sin, and death, but by Christ’s redemption and in our regenerated spirit as the “meeting hall” of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, our body is a member of Christ and the temple of the Holy Spirit—Rom. 6:6, 12, 14; 7:11, 24; 1 Cor. 6:15, 19.
２
To preserve our body is to glorify God in our body—v. 20.
３
To preserve our body is to magnify Christ in our body—Phil. 1:20.
４
To preserve our body, we must not live according to our soul, the old man; then the body of sin will lose its job and become unemployed—Rom. 6:6.
５
To preserve our body, we must not present our body to anything that is sinful but instead present ourselves as slaves to righteousness and our members as weapons of righteousness—vv. 13, 18-19, 22; Dan. 5:23:
ａ
“This is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor”—1 Thes. 4:3-4.
ｂ
That they do not know God is the basic reason that people indulge in the passion of lust—v. 5.
６
To preserve our body, we must buffet it and lead it as a slave to fulfill our holy purpose to become the holy city—1 Cor. 9:27; Rev. 21:2.